Deadly intersection strikes fear into pedestrians

Staten island Advance/Anthony DePrimoA car speeds past a pedestrian trying to make her way across Bartlett Avenue at the corner of Richmond Avenue in Eltingville.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — I ‘m standing on the sidewalk at the corner of
Bartlett Avenue and Richmond Avenue and my life is passing before my
eyes.

Cars shoot off a curve as if it’s a NASCAR race. Drivers cut each other off and jockey for lane position.

If a school bus headed right at me doesn’t make the bend, this amusing
knee-high joke of a guardrail gets wiped out and I’m roadkill.

And this is a bus stop. Several people could be standing here. A car
loses control ... they’re all mowed down like bowling pins.

Same goes for the wide open bus stop across the street.

The speed limit is 35 mph, never mind that it’s raining and the road is
slippery as a bass. Motorists apparently trust their tires to grip the
road the way the television ads promise.

They can spare the family of Anthony Rizzo the sales pitch.

All this 16-year-old kid was trying to do was cross this Eltingville
intersection on his way to school when he got slammed by an SUV.

Staten Island Advance/Anthony DePrimoNew Dorp High School students Kenroy Dilbert, and Martin Cruz, 15, wait to cross Hylan Boulevard at New Dorp Lane, an intersection where many accidents have occured in the past.

Now, young Anthony, a soccer player at St. Joseph by-the-Sea High
School and by all accounts a great kid with a fun sense of humor and a
giant heart, is gone.

No need to mention the driver’s name. He was just driving, and Anthony
was just suddenly there, which is whypolice didn’t hand out any
tickets.

Accidents happen, and Anthony is the seventh pedestrian to die on
Staten Island this year — already equalling the number of pedestrians
killed on Island streets in 2009 and 2007. For those counting,
Department of Transportation numbers show six died in 2008, nine in
2006, and eight were fatally struck in 2005.

This one was just horribly tragic ... two innocent victims caught in
the blind spot of a 250-foot bend in a road that screams for help.

Which is why I fear for the pedestrian waiting on the other side of
Richmond Avenue to take that first, daring step into traffic.

He makes his way halfway across then stops in the middle. Vehicles zoom
by within inches, so close his coat flaps in the passing wind.

“They need to put a light here,” he says when he reaches the other side.

“There’s not even a crosswalk,” says Bea Reichert, who lives on
Richmond Avenue with her husband, Raymond, two houses down from
Bartlett Avenue. “You take your life in your hands just crossing the
street.”

The Reicherts say double yellow lines were painted in the middle of
Richmond Avenue to form a safety zone for cars. But the yellow has
since worn off from the constant pounding of rubber on roadway.

“We constantly hear beeping horns and tires screeching,” Raymond says. “All they did was make it worse.”

For two years Sen. Andrew Lanza and Assemblyman Louis Tobacco have
lobbied for a traffic light, a stop sign, a “children at play” sign —
something, anything to slow traffic so pedestrians can cross Richmond
at Bartlett and live to tell about it.

Traffic controls work at the corner of New Dorp Lane and Hylan
Boulevard, where every day is a cattle call of crossing New Dorp High
School students.

A delay-timer installed on the traffic light now gives pedestrians more
time to cross Hylan. A police officer directs traffic. A crossing guard
helps people get across.

“Traffic here is crazy,” says pedestrian David Sanchez, 30, of New
Dorp. “Now, it’s better than before, but it’s still almost impossible
to cross. You have to time it right, even with a cop here.”

“We’ve had no incidents since the delay-timer was installed,” says a traffic officer working the New Dorp and Hylan corner.

But the DOT had a better idea for Bartlett and Richmond.

Last year, they turned four area streets — Bartlett, Lamoka and Wilson
avenues, and Sylvia Street — one-way. A DOT spokesperson cited a 2008
analysis and reasoned that traffic conditions at Bartlett and Richmond
didn’t meet federal qualifications to install any signs at Bartlett and
Richmond.

Brilliant. Make the side streets one-way but don’t sneeze on Richmond
Avenue. Let pedestrians cross one of the Island’s most treacherous
intersections without as much as a prayer.

Then blame it on the feds.

Here’s a couple of numbers the DOT can analyze the next time they put that corner up against their federal credentials.